This invention relates to an automatic specimen sealing system and, particularly, to an automatic specimen sealing system for performing automatically and continuously a series of operations of the type in which a glass slide having a thin specimen smeared thereon is conveyed along a conveyor and a binding liquid is applied and a glass cover is supplied to seal the specimen.
Generally, a tissue specimen for microscope examination that will be used for pathology or medical examination of cells is prepared through the steps of dehydrating a tissue sample by means of alcohol or the like, packing the sample with paraffin or the like, smearing a thin slice of the paraffin-packed sample on a glass slide, and subjecting the slide to a staining process. The slide is then stored in a cage and preserved in xylene or the like.
Then, the thus-preprocessed specimen is sealed by a cover of about 0.09 to 1.0 mm in thickness by the use of a binding agent. The specimen can be stored at this stage.
In the course of preparing the specimen, it is necessary to prevent destruction of the tissue and mixing of air therewith. Further, these operations must be done quickly; however, they were performed manually for the most part in the prior art.
In recent years, the respective processing steps have been automated individually, but the overall specimen sealing device was not fully automated. One such device has been developed by Schandon Southern Products Limited and is disclosed in Japanese Published Patent Application No. 109377/78. According to this disclosure, onto a glass cover with a binding liquid dropped thereon, a glass slide having a lower face onto which a sliced specimen has been placed is guided and the glass cover is pushed up against the slide positioned above the former to diffuse the binding liquid between the slide and the cover, whereby the specimen is sealed between the two glass members.
However, in this automatic specimen sealing device, the binding liquid is not applied directly to the specimen and will penetrate the specimen only after the cover has come into contact with the slide, thus the binding liquid may not penetrate sufficiently, resulting in voids.
Further, this prior art device can use only expensive glass covers of a standardized size. It is desirable to use glass covers, the size of which is selectable among several sizes according to the size of the specimens for economical reason.
Moreover, in this prior art device including a slide setting case for storing a stack of glass slides therein, an uppermost slide of the stack is grasped at its periphery by a fork provided at an end of a rotatable arm and the slide is carried to above a sealing position by rotation of the arm sequentially.
Thus, in loading the slides in the setting case, it is necessary to take out the slides stored in a container filled with xylol liquid one after another and to pile them up in the setting case. This operation is troublesome and a complicated slide pick-up mechanism is required for the device.